Apologies for the product plug, but I think the fact that here at Microsoft we are investing in making tools along the line of thought presented in the article here tends to reinforce Megan’s point of view.
Our Silverlight and WPF platfoms are built from the ground up specifically for the purpose of interactive applications. And our tools, Expression Blend and Sketchflow are purpose-built for designing navigation, interactivity, and data-presentation applications for those platfoms. Because you are working directly in the platform medium of your final app, you can also make the visual design as real as desired/necessary at any stage of the creative process in any of the above areas of emphasis. You can also move seamlessly from “sketching”, to “mockup”, to “prototype”, to “implementation”, and even to “revision & rework” phases of your project without starting over or switching toolsets.
We would love to have people try our tools as they explore this process of mocking things up outside of Photoshop in the final run-time platform.
(And if you must stick with Photoshop comps, we also have some exciting solutions for incorporating that artwork into the Blend workflow and bringing your comps to life with interactivity and data binding.)
Rick Keeney
Apologies for the product plug, but I think the fact that here at Microsoft we are investing in making tools along the line of thought presented in the article here tends to reinforce Megan’s point of view.
Our Silverlight and WPF platfoms are built from the ground up specifically for the purpose of interactive applications. And our tools, Expression Blend and Sketchflow are purpose-built for designing navigation, interactivity, and data-presentation applications for those platfoms. Because you are working directly in the platform medium of your final app, you can also make the visual design as real as desired/necessary at any stage of the creative process in any of the above areas of emphasis. You can also move seamlessly from “sketching”, to “mockup”, to “prototype”, to “implementation”, and even to “revision & rework” phases of your project without starting over or switching toolsets.
We would love to have people try our tools as they explore this process of mocking things up outside of Photoshop in the final run-time platform.
(And if you must stick with Photoshop comps, we also have some exciting solutions for incorporating that artwork into the Blend workflow and bringing your comps to life with interactivity and data binding.)